Today is my husband's birthday. I wanted to make a special cake - something I had not tried before. There were a lot of sweet mandarins at home - so I scoured the net till I found the perfect cake that was not too hard. It was doing beautifully in the oven and turning dark brown just as the recipe said it would: when at the 48th minute I decided to open the door to put my skewer in to see if it was done. And poooof....the middle sank just slightly!
I was disappointed with myself more than anything. So to cover it up I hunted around for some candied mandarin recipe. I am not a confectioner and I have a lot of difficulty with desserts. I managed to candy some mandarins and decorate the cake so my mistake is not visible!
Taste test alert! It is a super moist cake with just a touch of sweetness and the candied mandarin explosive pockets just set the cake off extremely well! This will be a definite family favourite from now on!
Ingredients:
250g whole mandarins
85 g butter, melted
100ml flavourless vegetable oil ( I used bran oil)
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups caster sugar
200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
For decorating:
20 peeled mandarin segments, removed of all fibre
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
20 bamboo skewers
1 Styrofoam block to place the skewers
Candy thermometer if you have it
A few mint leaves
Icing sugar for dusting
A few thinly sliced mandarin peels
Method:
Preheat over to 180 deg C. Prepare a 8 inch cake tin by greasing it with butter and lining with baking paper.
In a saucepan, add the mandarins with half a cup of water and cook for around 30 minutes. Make sure you turn the mandarins around a couple of times so it is cooked uniformly.
Once they are cooked, drain water, cut them in half and remove any pips.
Put it in the blender, skin and all and make a fine pulp.
In a large bowl, add melted butter, oil, eggs, sugar and mandarin puree and mix well. Next add flour a few table spoons at a time and incorporate into the mix. Lastly add the baking powder and the salt and process until just mixed.
Place mixture in your prepared tin.
Bake at 180 degrees for about 52 minutes - my skewer came out clean and dry. Turn oven off.
Let the cake stay in the warm oven for another 15 minutes. Then take it out and let it cool down for some more time. Once it is cool enough for you to touch it, turn it on to a tray and let it cool down properly.
Option 1 - If your cake is perfect - just dust with icing sugar and serve.
Option 2 - if you have a little dip in the middle like me, now is the time to get some decorations organised!
To make the candied mandarin segments:
In a saucepan, heat 1 cup water with 1 cup granulated sugar.
While the sugar water is boiling DO NOT stir.
Thread your mandarins in to the skewers and keep it ready.
If you have a candy thermometer, wait till the temperature of the sugar/water mix reaches 275 degrees F. If you do not have a candy thermometer like me, you need to check the sugar mixture by dropping a teaspoon of it into ice cold water. If it hardens and gets a soft crack, then you are ready to dip your mandarins in it.
Dip mandarin segments one at a time coating it with the sugar mixture and sticking it into the styrofoam. As you can see, I had trouble because my foam was a cone and I had a bit of messy drops of sugar. I also used toothpicks which is a bad idea - because I nearly cooked the top of my fingers doing that!
The last step was to decorate the cake - and though it is not perfect, I do feel very proud of my accomplishment! I think the next time I make this cake I will definitely be better at it!
I might even do a separate blog post about candying mandarin segments!
looks heavenly
ReplyDeletethank you, Cholena! ♥
Delete